1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of forming an image at a predetermined toner consumption amount.
2. Description of the Related Art
A processing mode, called “toner save mode”, for suppressing the color material consumption amount of an image forming apparatus is widely known as a function of reducing the density in printing to save printing costs. Recently, in the toner save mode, the same image quality as that output in normal printing is requested of processing while saving toner.
As this processing method, there is proposed a method of switching an optimum toner save method (method of thinning out pixels in a predetermined cycle or a method using a toner save gamma correction table) for each object which forms a document to be printed (see, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-083845).
However, in the prior art literature, the toner save method is switched for each object. Depending on the ratio of each object to a document, the toner consumption amount in toner saving changes.